Factors impacting on student aspirations and expectations in regional Australia

This study was funded in recognition that rural disadvantage is a major concern for Australia as a nation. Young people in rural and remote areas are often more vulnerable to the impact of economic restructuring and the education-hungry global economic environment (Kenyon, Sercombe, Black and Lhuede, 2001: p.1), and more vulnerable to the shifting demographics and community restructurings of the Australian economy (Ainley and McKenzie, 1999; Spierings, 2001). This vulnerability is compounded by the educational disadvantage young people in regional Australia often experience: in access (both to schools and reasonable curriculum choice, to a stable and capable teaching force, to higher education programmes, to TAFE courses, and to other training programmes), and in the employment and training opportunities available in the move from school to adult life (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC], 1999, 2000a).

Studies into students’ educational pathways have identified a range of contributing factors, including the interaction between rural location and socioeconomic status, gender, the quality of the school experience, and the cost of overcoming the tyranny of distance (Alloway and Gilbert, 2001; James et al 1999; Kenyon et al, 2001). However, Marks, Fleming, Long and McMillan (2000) have shown that the role of attitudes, motivations and aspirations is just as influential, and their work points to the need for research which considers the narratives young people use when they imagine and aspire to particular futures and pathways.

The Higher Education Council (James et al, 1999, p. i) has also indicated the significance of "local social and cultural networks and values" in post-school pathways, claiming that "aspirations for higher education . . . are influenced by a subtle web of interwoven characteristics including the collective values of the local community culture" (p. ii). The Council noted that there had been little research into "attitudinal factors influencing student choice among population subgroups" (p. 13). In fact, the use of single categories of rurality or isolation in large scale studies has meant an almost complete dearth of studies which might capture any local community variations in these cultural influences.

This report presents the results of a series of focus group interviews that sought to address these issues. By interviewing students, teachers and parents, the study aimed to give voice to the experience of people in regional areas – their aspirations and expectations, and the webs of discourses and narratives within which these views of the future are formed. The following sections provide detailed information about the interview locations, about where and how the interviews were conducted.

A significant problem for research into regional and rural education has been the failure to focus on the diversity of contexts in these areas, with many studies regarding as comparable any community which is non-metropolitan. This study aimed to capture the diversity of regional communities, and the sites were selected accordingly.

The study garnered the voices of young adults and others from 15 different communities across the country. The sites ranged from Broome, Katherine and Cloncurry in the north, to Burnie, Mt Gambier and Sale in the south; from Biloela, Tamworth and Young in the east, to Karratha in the west; and from Cloncurry with a population of 3000 to Melbourne, with a population of over 3 million. Thirteen regional research sites were drawn from all States and Territories (except the ACT) and were chosen to produce a mix on a range of criteria which are outlined below. In addition, the project included 2 metropolitan sites in Melbourne, to provide points of comparison with the regional sites.

Selection criteria included:

The original research proposal included a plan for 16 sites selected on these grounds. In the event, three sites originally identified for the project were excluded, as the schools in those sites were unable to accommodate the research as a result of pressures of time and other demands on staff. From the list of sites originally proposed, schools in Hughenden, Kalgoorlie and Albany indicated that they were unable to assist the project. Alternative sites were found in Cloncurry and Karratha, providing a total of 15 sites.

The resulting list of communities is provided in Table 1.1 on the following page, and the distribution shown on the accompanying map.

Table 1.1: Research sites and characteristics

Note: Figures are Statistical Local Area totals from the ABS 2001 Census, except for asterisked locations, which are approximations based on other government sources.

The research proposal pointed out that aspirations and expectations are formed over a considerable period of time. Two key points for students are at the end of compulsory schooling (Year 10 in most States), where decisions about continuing to Year 12 will crystallize, and the end of Year 12, where participation in work or further or higher education will be at issue. Students in both year groups were to be interviewed, and their views of their past experience and future opportunities obtained.

In communities where numbers and types of schools allowed, student interviews were to be conducted in two schools to include State and Catholic or Independent schools. The Longitudinal Studies of Australian Youth have noted the influence of school type on student outcomes (see, for example, Marks, McMillan, Hillman, 2001). Consequently the study sought to include (where possible) both State and non-State schools in the sites selected. In sites where only one school was available, interviews were to be held with two groups in each of the two year levels (4 groups per school). In sites where two schools were involved, interviews were to be conducted with one group from each year level. The total number of student groups was to be 64. Each focus group was to include between 6 and 8 students – the standard number for work of this complex nature (Krueger and Casey, 2000).

Given that young adults can be influenced by the gender composition of interview groups (see discussion in Gilbert and Gilbert, 1998), it was proposed to use a variety of gender groupings for the project. The selection of groups across the sites aimed to produce a balance of all male groups, all female groups and mixed sex groups. Selection of groups also ensured inclusion of Indigenous students. In sites with significant numbers of Indigenous students, additional focus group interviews were sought with these students. In addition, there were to be one parent and one teacher focus group interview at each site, involving teachers and parents of students in both year levels.

The complexities of negotiating suitable times with schools and the tight timelines involved made it impossible to fulfil all these parameters for interview group selection. In particular, schools found it especially difficult to recruit and schedule parents to participate in the interviews. This was a cause for concern for the research team, but there was little that could be done. An attempt was made to canvas parents' views through a short open-ended questionnaire inviting parents to comment on the issues of the study. (See Appendix 1.) In schools where parent interviews could not be arranged, schools were asked to distribute these invitations to comment, and to ask parents to return them to the school. Again, however, the response was disappointing. A total of eighteen parent replies were received from four schools.

Another problem was that the demands on student time (especially the varying end of the year examination schedules for final year students) meant that it was not possible to interview Year 12 students in all schools. Where this occurred, Year 11 students were substituted, reducing to some extent the effectiveness of the comparison on the two decision points at Years 10 and 12. Similar scheduling difficulties meant that schools found it difficult to arrange separate male and female groups. It was less disruptive to organise mixed groups, and these became the predominant interview format.

Another minor variation was that the difficulties of scheduling interviews with groups of teachers meant that individual interviews with teachers were held in some sites.

Despite these qualifications, the resulting corpus of interviews comprised a very large, diverse and informative data base. The interviews provided an excellent and rare opportunity to identify and analyse the aspirations and expectations of young people and significant others in a range of regional locations.

Details of the interview groups are shown in Table 1.2 on the following page.

Table 1.2: Completed interviews by type and location

This range of interviews produced the following overall pattern in the data.

Interview Breakdown

The research proposal argued that students' aspirations and expectations are developed continuously over the life course, and are based on a range of considerations, including:

The last three of these were considered to be particularly relevant to the possibility of a distinctive 'rurality' factor in explaining rural-urban differences in aspirations and expectations.

These issues generated the following research questions:

What does it mean to grow up in particular communities as a young man, or as a young woman? What expectations and aspirations are developed? What expectations and aspirations are less readily available? How do schooling experiences influence these expectations and aspirations?

How is a future imagined and constructed? How do various community expectations and lived realities contribute to these imagined futures?

What narratives and explanations are most commonly drawn upon to organise and articulate experience? What narratives are edited out, or silenced, in the articulation and explanation of the past, the present and the future?

To answer these questions, the research plan designed the focus group interviews to identify students', parents' and teachers' views about aspirations and expectations for educational participation and outcomes, and the influences on them.

The interviews were semi-structured and interactive, with open-ended questions aimed to provide as much scope as possible for respondents to identify significant issues. The interviews were therefore flexible and negotiated in the course of the group interactions in each site. However, the overarching interview schedule which guided the research was as follows:

• Growing up in this community.
  How is life here different?
  What special experiences do young men and young women have here which will be important in influencing their future?
  What are students’ experiences of leisure, part time work, family responsibilities, etc.?
  How do these activities relate to their involvement in school?
  What are their experiences of school?
   

• Future destinations.
  What options for future life and work do most young men and young women imagine?
  How does the issue of staying or leaving the district figure in this?
  What role does education play in these futures?
  What major considerations influence decisions about continuing education?
   

• The school-community relationship.
  How do friends, parents and community members regard the school?
  How important or highly valued is education/ the school in the local community?
  Are there different expectations/ aspirations for young men and young women?

This list was further developed into a set of guidelines to ensure that the interactions were following a consistent set of interests and interpretations. These guidelines, which were used by the project team during the interviews, are presented in Appendix 2.

Interviews were arranged by school personnel and conducted primarily on the school sites. Interviews ranged from approximately 30 minutes in length to over an hour and a half, and were tape recorded and transcribed for analysis.

The research design for this project was complex, involving 15 locations around Australia, 20 schools, and hundreds of participants. Seven different education authorities were also involved in authorising the research.

It was probably inevitable that such a complex design would face difficulties, but some of the problems encountered were a serious threat to the research design, and required very time consuming and urgent remedy from members of the research team. Despite this, some of the problems were insurmountable. In the hope that these obstacles can be prevented, and that other research projects may be spared these problems, they are listed here along with recommendations for their solution.

1. Delays in receiving research approval from education authorities.
   The research team was advised that contact with schools needed to be arranged through the relevant section of the various State Departments or Ministries. DEST staff involved in the project undertook to arrange letters of introduction to the relevant State personnel. The intention of this arrangement was to facilitate access to schools and the requirements of the various systems for research approval. In the event, the responses from the States varied considerably. For two states, the letter and the information on the project supplied were sufficient for immediate approval. For two others, approval was granted on this basis but only after considerable delay. Two States required a completely new application process, despite the fact that the research had been approved by MCEETYA; this resulted in further delay. The difficulties in gaining approval to work in the State systems was a serious hindrance to the research, since the research team was unable to approach schools until these bureaucratic hurdles had been overcome. The result was that by the time we were authorised to approach schools in some States, much time had been lost, and the research ran foul of the demands and disruptions which confront schools in the last term of school. Problems which followed included: year 12 students were unavailable in many sites; since there was less time to choose sites which met the design parameters, it became necessary to visit the first available school; there was little time to find alternative sites when the originally proposed site was unable to cooperate in the study; schools had less time to arrange for the research visits than they would otherwise have had.

State authorities clearly have a right to expect that research in their schools will meet certain standards. However, it might be thought that the process would be easier in the case of projects which had already been approved by MCEETYA. The different requirements across the States and Territories further complicate the process. Some consideration needs to be given to how this process can be facilitated.

2. Difficulties in accessing schools.
   Schools are busy places, and research projects such as this one can appear to be of marginal relevance to the daily demands of school life. The research team met with excellent cooperation from the majority of schools, and is indebted to many school personnel for the hours spent in organising and participating in the research. In the great majority of cases, preparations at the school level were prompt, expert and cordial. However, in some schools initial approaches were met with a distinctly jaundiced view that research was intrusive and distracting. Some schools simply said they didn't have time; others said that they had been host to too many research projects in recent times. To some extent, these difficulties may have been exacerbated by the short timelines previously mentioned. While the solution to this problem is obviously not a simple one, it occurred sufficiently frequently to be a real obstacle to the study, and warrants consideration by bodies such as MCEETYA and its constituent authorities who commission such research.
    

3. Parent involvement
   The difficulty in gaining parental input into the research has already been mentioned, but it was the main aspect of the research plan which was not successfully achieved. Schools were apologetic at being unable to arrange parent interviews, but spoke as if this was not unusual, and said there was little they could do about it. It is impossible to tell if this issue is particularly related to the regional locations of the study, but if it reflects parent interest in schooling, it is a cause for concern.

The field work based on the research design outlined here was conducted on short timelines, and relied on the goodwill and professionalism of many school administrators, teachers and parents, as well as the young people themselves. The researchers greatly appreciate the assistance and cooperation provided. The report that follows tries to capture much of this spirit, and is dedicated to these people of regional Australia.

The chapters that ensue have been designed specifically to meet the requirements of the contract research. What follows in Chapter 2 is a three-part focus on literature that operates as a background to this study, namely: a critical review and analysis of relevant literature; a systematic review and analysis of available statistical data on related topics; and a comprehensive survey of strategies that were found in the literature to support student aspirations and expectations for their futures. Thereafter there follows a series of chapters covering the findings of the study related to its major foci, namely: the nature of young people's aspirations and expectations (Chapter 3); factors that influence student aspirations and expectations (Chapters 4 and 5); obstacles students are likely to confront in realising their aspirations (Chapter 6); and strategies identified in the field that may offer valuable models for further investigation of how student aspirations and expectations might be enhanced and sustained (Chapter 7).

Finally, Chapter 8 provides a summary statement, a number of conclusions, and a set of recommendations as drawn from the research. Importantly, the limitations of the study are identified in Chapter 8. The final chapter also offers a reasoned response to the question of whether there was a distinctive ‘rurality’ factor at play that might differentiate the expectations and aspirations of students in regional areas from those of their urban counterparts.

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